Technical

Chocolate

Hot Chocolate Week: Day Seven

All right, I can admit when I’m wrong. I bit off more than I could chew.

I decided that I would give up my aim of hitting all six (seven actually – nine if you count different preparation methods I wanted to try) of the Aztec/Maya hot chocolates I have lined up and shoot for three. I could do two separate rounds of tasting and then write up a separate post summing things up. It was a nice simple plan and like most simple plans it was doomed to get complicated.

The first hot chocolate I picked to try was one that doesn’t declare itself as Aztec or Maya but falls firmly into that same group based on the spices involved: Jacques Torres Wicked Hot Chocolate. This is one of the things I most wanted to try in New York. I’ll allow the description from the Jacques Torres web site to speak for the chocolate and it’s ingredients:

You will notice that cocoa is not mentioned and the simple reason for that is that Jacques Torres hot chocolate “is made with real chocolate – never cocoa powder.” This is serious stuff. The instructions make the seriousness of the product all the more clear. They call for a half-cup of milk and a heaping quarter-cup of chocolate. It sounds like a small serving, but it's like a meal. It mixes up THICK. It’s the sort of hot chocolate that you eat with a spoon. The chilies don't add a ton of burn but do impart a good bit of heat and flavor and the spices are a nice addition as well. It even stands up to my usual standard of balance. All of the spices add something to the chocolate but nothing overpowers anything else. But, like I said, it’s somewhat like a meal. I might, in a few hours, be able to manage another hot chocolate, but this has me satiated for now. I’ve hit my chocolate limit. So much so that I nearly forgot to try and rate it I was so overwhelmed. So, ummm... yeah. It’s excellent stuff and quite a fine treat. So fine a treat that I’m calling it a full 9.5 out of 10 and it only misses a 10 because I'd have trouble eating cookies with it (I like a little snackage with my hot chocolate).

So, where does this leave the rest of the showdown? I’m not sure. I’ll add more as I can, but I don’t quite know how long it will take. A number of these look like they’re similar to this one so it could take a while.

William Said:

Kat Said:

cybele Said:

I really liked the Jacques Torres stuff when I visited their store. I like the "hot pudding" texture (I guess that's the corn starch that does that).

I still make mine the old fashioned way, just dump some cocoa into a sauce pan with some milk and a couple of grinds of nutmeg and a smidge of sugar. It's always different because I have an aversion to measuring.

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